Small team. Big game. A plan that holds.
Indie games rarely fail for lack of talent. They fail on scope, runway, and milestones nobody wrote down. The Production Lab gives founders senior production leadership, part-time, so the plan holds and the game ships.
Naughty Dog
Treyarch
Striking Distance
Survios
Machine Zone
BulletFarm
Ready at Dawn
Vigil Games
Four ways to work with indie studios.
Sized to your team and your runway. Start with one, add another when it makes sense.
Fractional Production Lead
A senior producer a few days a week. Cadence, schedule, and tracking set up from scratch, without a full-time salary.
Scope & Milestone Planning
Turn the game in your head into a plan your runway can pay for. Prototype, vertical slice, and launch milestones with exit criteria everyone agrees on.
Publisher & Funding Readiness
Publishers and funds want proof you can deliver. Production plans, schedules, and budgets that hold up in a pitch meeting.
Founder Partnership
Team structure, role clarity, and strategic support for founders building their first studio.
Production is the job nobody on your team signed up for.
From first call to fully operational.
Discovery call
A free 30 minutes on where your studio is, what is breaking down, and whether this is the right fit.
Production audit
A focused look at your workflows, team, and milestones to pinpoint exactly where to start.
Embedded engagement
In your tools, your standups, your pipeline, working alongside the team, not from a deck.
Handoff & continuity
Ownership transfers to your team. The systems outlast the engagement.
Let AI carry the reporting, triage, and docs.
Zach Gonzalez
A game producer with 20 years in games and 15+ years in production across AAA console, PC, VR, and mobile, shipped as Production Director, Lead Producer, Senior Producer, and Producer. Available for consulting engagements and contract or interim production roles. No two teams are the same, and no single methodology fits all of them. The Production Lab exists because production should fit the team, not the other way around. I draw from Agile, Kanban, and Waterfall, blending them together like alchemy into the systems that actually ship games.
“If you are trying to start a company or a new department; or developing an innovative new title or game mode, Zach is your man.”
Ship the game you set out to make.
Bring your scope doc, your runway, and whatever is keeping you up at night.